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Newsflash: You Can Still Be Fired for Smoking Legal Weed

A cautionary tale out of Washington for those of you who can't wait to get your hands on some legal marijuana: one of the first people ever to legally buy pot in the Evergreen State has been fired by his employer, after being spotted on the news purchasing his bud.

Mike Boyer, a 30-year old security guard and committed pursuer of altered states of mind, made history when he became the first legal buyer of pot in his hometown of Spokane, Wash.

The buzz kill: according to the NY Daily News, his employer called him in for a drug test after "a client had seen the security guard on a newscast and was concerned about the drug use." When the test came back positive for THC, Boyer—who had previously signed a document agreeing to prohibit having the substance in his system—was let go.

While Boyer seems unrepentant about the turn of events, his experience is a useful reminder that all those disclaimers and assorted pieces of paper you scrawl your signature on when starting a new job are more than just an elaborate initiation rite. So whether you live in the pot-friendly states of Washington or Colorado, or one of the other 48 where weed isn't (yet) legal, consider this your lesson: 'legal' and 'acceptable to an employer' are two very different things.

UPDATE: Boyer has since been reinstated. Speaking to NBC news, a company spokesperson explained that there had been a misuderstanding over whether Boyer had been smoking/under the influence when on duty.